Louisiana's Giant Omelette Fest Celebrates Silver Anniversary

The nation's only Giant Omelette Celebration will mark its 25th anniversary this weekend by adding one more egg to its 12-foot skillet.

The town of Abbeville, La., in 1984, joined the confederation of seven cities from Argentina to Belgium that annually commemorates Napoleon's order for a tiny town in southern France to produce an army-sized omelette. Bessieres upheld the tradition long after Napoleon's troops had gone, cooking oversized omelettes at Easter to feed the poor. The practice has thrived in places where locals fret about losing touch with their Francophone heritage.

But that doesn't mean the Abbeville cooks are entirely faithful to the recipe favored by Monsieur Bonaparte: Festival president Gordy Landry reports, "we add a Cajun flair."

"Most of the other giant omelettes are a little bit plainer and not quite so tasty," he continues. "In France, they just stick to the eggs. In Canada, they add some ham. But the only place that puts crawfish in is us."
Abbeville's omelette (which, Landry concedes, is closer to scrambled eggs, since it's impossible to properly flip) also includes four gallons of onion tops, 50 pounds of bell peppers and 5,025 eggs. The mixture's liberally spiked with Tabasco sauce, meted out by official "Tabasco Girls" who sashay around the skillet. "No meal in South Louisiana would be complete without Tabasco pepper sauce," the event's Web site insists.

Landry says there's always plenty of omelette for everyone in attendance; 10,000 people typically show up for the festival, drawn as much by the gumbo and jambalaya vendors, an egg-cracking contest, egg-blessing Mass and the chance to see toque-wearing local dignitaries on parade as they are by the promise of free eggs.

"We're usually successful in getting rid of it," Landry says of the omelette, which cooks over a wood fire. "It's a real nice celebration."